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and soirees frequented by men in khaki and khadi, with the power to make or break destinies with a single word, for or against. He was the one who would laugh the loudest when a distinguished member of that gathering cracked a joke or told a funny tale. And at award functions, his cheering and clapping was the most vociferous, if a well-networked senior received a medal or an honour in some way. It was this apple-polishing trait that endeared him to the powers that be, who carried their favourite sycophant forward by leaps and bounds, and installed him in one of the most coveted law enforcement offices in the country, which was a station far beyond the stratosphere of his ability. To put it in simpler words, the unspectacular T.L. Ghankar became Mumbai’s commissioner of police. It was here that he ran into Meeta once again, who, by now, was happily married to her college sweetheart, and was a mother of two teenage daughters. But Ghankar hadn’t forgotten how she had spurned him all those years ago, along with the fact that she and the other cadets at the academy had made fun of him by calling him Santri; now that he was in a position of great strength, he decided it was time to have his long-awaited revenge. Therefore, he used his considerable influence to make sure that the proposal to form the SCS was blocked. But when that scheme failed, he not only attempted to poach a number of their high-profile cases by having them transferred to his office, he would also interfere in the investigation of the cases which the SCS had on hand, apart from making sure that the newly formed squad was never comfortable in its new space. For example, Ghankar pulled a few strings and had the SCS shunted far away from the nerve centre of the Mumbai Police in South Mumbai, to a lesser-known police building in the city’s western suburb, located along Bandra’s famous Carter Road, where they had to share office space with the city’s passport renewal department. They also had to make repeated calls and requests for the manpower they needed. Apart from Meeta Kashyap, Ghankar also bore intense dislike and jealousy towards Hoshiyar Khan, not only because Khan’s case-solving exploits featured regularly in the city’s dailies, but also because Khan belonged to a moneyed family, which in the eyes of the commissioner was an unpardonable sin. Another reason for his hostility was the fact that he had tried his best to convince Khan to break away from Meeta Kashyap’s team and join him at the headquarters, but the good inspector had politely declined, which badly bruised Ghankar’s ego. Moreover, as he was afraid of Khan’s family connections, he had decided against using his influence, which made him feel even more helpless and infuriated. Meanwhile, in his spare time, when he wasn’t trying to come up with schemes to decimate the SCS, Ghankar would indulge in other ridiculous things. Take, for instance, his juvenile method of trying to strike fear in the hearts of hardened criminals. He would regularly summon history-sheeters to his office at the headquarters, and the moment they entered, they would be greeted by the sight of Commissioner Ghankar sitting behind his desk, surrounded by three to four burly policemen. Ghankar would then hand out a coconut to one of his officers, who would hold it in one hand and strike it hard with the other, breaking it into two. Ghankar would then smile menacingly at the history-sheeters and advise them to mend their crooked ways, or else he would hand them over to his officers and then their fate would be very similar to that of the coconut. Needless to say, this act of his made him the laughing stock of the Mumbai underworld. Another thing he loved doing was to give people around him the impression that he was the quintessential son of the soil. To project this image, he would visit the officers’ canteen during lunchtime and, in full view of everyone present, order a bowl of dal, two paos, one raw onion